Earlier this week, on World Oceans Day, the IOC-UNESCO announced the endorsement of the first programmes and contributions submitted under the UN Ocean Decade for Sustainable Development. IOCCP has played an active role in preparing five bids which were all successful:

• Observing and Predicting the Global Coastal Ocean (CoastPredict) which will “integrate observations with numerical models to produce predictions with uncertainties from extreme events to climate, for the coastal marine ecosystems (their services), biodiversity, co-designing transformative response to science and societal needs.” 
• Observing Together: Meeting Stakeholder Needs and Making Every Observation Count which will “transform ocean data access and availability by connecting ocean observers and the communities they serve, through enhanced support to both new and existing community-scale projects.” 
• Ocean Observing Co-Design: evolving ocean observing for a sustainable future which will “build the process, infrastructure and tools for co-design, creating an international capacity to evolve a truly integrated ocean observing system, matching agile observing and modelling capability with requirements.” 
• Global Ocean Oxygen Decade which will “raise global awareness about ocean deoxygenation, provide knowledge for action and develop mitigation and adaptation strategies and solutions to ensure continued provision of ecosystem services, and minimize impacts on the ocean economy through local, regional, and global efforts, including transdisciplinary research, innovative outreach, and ocean education and literacy.
• Ocean Acidification Research for Sustainability (OARS) which will “foster the development of the science of ocean acidification including the impacts on marine life and sustainability of marine ecosystems in estuarine-coastal-open ocean environments.” 

Apart from being directly involved in 5 endorsed programmes, we will further contribute to at least 3 others:

• Ocean Practices for the Decade which will engage diverse communities of practice and interlink them through FAIR digital technologies to secure, equitably share and advance the cultural and natural methodological heritage related to the ocean.
• Digital Twins of the Ocean (DITTO) which will “establish and advance a digital framework on which all marine data, modelling and simulation along with AI algorithms and specialized tools including best practice will enable shared capacity to access, manipulate, analyse, and visualise marine information.”
• Observing Air-Sea Interactions Strategy (OASIS) which will “provide observational-based knowledge of air-sea interactions to fundamentally improve weather, climate and ocean prediction, promote healthy oceans, the blue economy, and sustainable food and energy.”
  

All these Programmeswill contribute to the exiting work the Ocean Decade will carry out, and essential to help give us the ocean we need for the future we want!

See all the Ocean Decade Actions Announced on 8 June 2021.See all the Ocean Decade Actions Announced on 8 June 2021.